Boston, February 4 (RHC)-- In the United States, a Massachusetts judge has refused to excuse Exxon Mobil Corp from a request by the state's attorney general to hand over decades worth of documents on its views on climate change, state officials report.

The decision by Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Heidi Brieger denying Exxon's request for an order exempting it from handing over the documents represents a legal victory for Attorney General Maura Healey, who is investigating the world's largest publicly traded oil company's climate policies.

"This order affirms our longstanding authority to investigate fraud," Healey said on Twitter following the decision, adding that Exxon "must come clean about what it knew about climate change."  Healey is one of two state prosecutors investigating whether Exxon knowingly misled its shareholders and the public as to what it knew about climate change.

The investigations follow separate reports by online news publication Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times showing that Exxon worked to play down the risks of climate change despite its own scientists' having raised concerns about it decades earlier.